


My Lonely Angel

by bothromeoandjuliet



Series: Spooky Times Jeronica Week (Wicked Jeronica) [5]
Category: Archie Comics, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Happy Ending, Hello darlings, I'm back on my angst, Light Angst, New York City, Road Trips, Secret Relationship, is symbolic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 11:50:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21252923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bothromeoandjuliet/pseuds/bothromeoandjuliet
Summary: What do you have, when you take two lonely, messed up people and take away their relationships? What do they do, and who with? And most importantly, what changes when the sun come up?





	My Lonely Angel

**Author's Note:**

> Oneshot 5/7 for Spooky Times Jeronica Week! I was very inspired while writing this one and I can't wait to see what you guys think!
> 
> Comments are welcomed and greatly appreciated! <3<3

Two weeks.

That’s how long it takes after Veronica and Archie break up for Jughead to get the phone call from Betty. The phone call that’s filled with awkward laughter and apologies and so much blushing happiness that it chokes him. Betty’s finally gotten her boy-next-door, and it’s clear that she’s never been happier; so Jughead bites down on seething words and let’s her talk.

“How’s Veronica taking it?”

He’s not sure why he feels the need to ask that—why Veronica’s feelings matter to him even though it’s clear that they don’t matter to Betty and Archie.

“She’s so excited for us, Jug! I—we—were a little worried about how she was going to react, but she’s just been an angel, Jughead, a complete angel.”

And at first Jughead believes Betty. He’s fooled—just like everyone else—into thinking that Veronica is perfectly fine with this new relationship. And he hates her for it; hates that the one person, who should feel just as betrayed by this situation as he does, is acting as the fairy-godmother to Archie and Betty’s happy ending. But then one night the mask falls, and Jughead is the only one who see’s it.

* * *

It’s a late night bender at the White Whyrm. Lights are flashing, music is pounding, hands are reaching out, touching, snatching for a bit of euphoria. The golden duo hadn’t shown and Jughead is swaying in the middle of it all, letting the alcohol and the irresponsibility cloud his mind—drown the voices in his head.

His eyes are on Veronica—have been all night, really—watching her swing to the music, go to the bar and order a drink, then back to the dance floor. He knows how many beers he’s had—nine—and he’s counted her martinis—seven—which brings the two of them to a grand total of not caring about bad decisions. 

“What’s a Northside Princess like you doing on the Southside?” he asks and Veronica turns to face him with snapping of her heels on the old wood floor.

“Daring a Southside dragon to kidnap me of course. Why else would I be here?”

Jughead grins down at her; at the gleam of devil-may-care in her eyes; at the shine of recklessness in her hair.

“Rumor has it that you’ve been being quite the little angel to our resident high-school sweethearts.”

“The angel to your devil, you mean. Archie’s missing you; all it’s been is guilt, guilt, guilt when it comes to you lately—from both of them.”

“Well, someone has to make you look good. Can’t imagine how you stand it, Princess. If it were me I’d have broken out by now.”

Veronica frowns at him, but honestly he’s more interested by her hips and the way they're sashaying to the music.

“I refuse to participate in your silent protest, Jughead. Unlike you, I can accept the inevitability of Betty and Archie ending up together. They’re meant to be, and everyone knows it.”

“Doesn’t mean that it’s not painful to the people they used and then left behind.” he mutters, and Veronica’s eyes soften.

“Hey, Jughead, listen to me okay?”

At first Jughead ignores her, but then Veronica drapes her arms around his neck and he has no choice but to give her his attention.

“This whole thing with Betty and Archie sucks. It’s complete bull-crap, okay? And if there was something that I could do to drown it out and pretend that it didn’t exist I would do it in a heart beat—but there’s not, so instead I’m here, because I know that no-one else who knows me is here. So tonight I can just drink and dance act like tomorrow doesn’t exist, because tomorrow I’ll just have to go back to grinning and bearing it.”

She moves to let go of him after she stops speaking, but Jughead reaches up; holds her there—don’t let go.

“And just when does tomorrow start for you, Princess?”

“In about an hour. But—“ Jughead lowers his head towards her’s—closer, almost tasting her—and Veronica’s breath catches in her throat.

“But?”

“But I could stand to forget about tomorrow a little longer…with the right…”

“Inducement?”

She nods and he leans in closer, his nose brushing against her’s.

“Jughead, this is only a—a one night thing. Right?”

Veronica’s hands—sticky against his neck. Everything’s sticky, he thinks, from the alcohol and the sweat and he knows that this decision is absolutely going to cling to them in the morning, but he can’t seem to find it in him to care.

“Right. One night.”

* * *

It is one night—or rather, one long succession of nights. Jughead had always know that Veronica was enticing, but after that fist kiss she’d become fixating to him. One night—one taste—isn’t enough, and they both know it, but every time they breath out from in-between heartbeats, “This is just for tonight.”

School ends, they both graduate and bite back the fears of an empty future. Jughead thought that with school done, Archie and Betty might become less of a presence in his and Veronica’s lives, but the truth ends up being that they’re around more, squawking out pleas for more time together before the summer ends.

Veronica smiles upon them and makes plans, and Jughead shrugs and rolls his eyes, keeping his gaze on the horizon—always the horizon.

Because Riverdale is his prison, and the horizon is the freedom that he's reaching for—always, always reaching for, and if he’s lucky, one day he just might be able to finally get it.

“I’m going to run, one of these days.” he tells Veronica sometimes “I’m going to run and run until I’ve finally got the stench of maple-syrup Riverdale out of my nose. I’ll find a place, with no Southside, and no Northside, just house after house of people who don’t care about me or about what I do.”

“No more leading the way? No more taking responsibility for everyone else’s issues?”

“No more, never.” he promises her.

* * *

The days drag on and the weeks bleed into each other—a slow, drip, dripping of time, and Jughead feels his horizon pulling further and further away from him and then one say Veronica shows up at his front door in a rented car, her bags in the backseat, and tells him to pack.

“But where are we going?” he asks.

“To show you the universe.” she answers, and that’s good enough for him.

The universe ends up being just New York City, but Jughead doesn’t mind. Because the city sparkles like Veronica’s eyes and that’s all he needs.

Veronica’s dad offers to host them at the family’s penthouse, and although they do see him from time to time, they end up declining his invitation, instead spending their nights in cheep hotel rooms, in separate beds, something that Veronica’s very strict about.

“You’re New York, Jughead.” she explains to him “You’re the city personified, and I won’t taint this for you.”

They’re sitting in the Met, looking up at a painting, Pygmalion and Galatea, when Veronica says this. Jughead isn’t sure what the association of ideas is in Veronica’s mind, but he doesn’t question her, just wraps his arm around her shoulder and responds,

“I’ll take the compliment of being New York, but we’ll have to go to Paris next.”

“And why is that?” she laughs, leaning her head against him.

“Because Paris is the city of lovers, Princess. Of lovers, and poets, and everything else that is hauntingly beautiful. You’ll fit right in.”

“But just for one night.”

“Well obviously.”

She laughs again at that, but her eyes are still fixed on the painting and Jughead can’t help the sudden chill that rolls through him while he watches her.

* * *

The rest of the summer passes them by, filled with bright flashes of late nights and Veronica’s smile; and then all of a sudden it’s their last night in the city and he’s holding Veronica’s hand.

They’d had dinner with her father and were walking back to the hotel. Cars rush along the road and strangers bustle around them.

“You have everything packed?” he asks, eyes on his boots and how they keep scraping along the pavement.

“Obviously,” she laughs “but the bigger question is, have you? Our checkout time is at six remember, and you don’t want to forget anything.”

“Yes, I remember, just like I have the other three times that you’ve reminded me about it. Honestly,” he says as the slow to a stop in front of the hotel “if you were going to be this worried about it we should have stayed at your dad’s tonight."

“I’m not worried, I’m just…being cautious.”

Jughead laughs then pulls her into a hug, nestling the top of her head underneath his chin. They stay silent for a moment and then Veronica murmurs something that he can’t quiet catch.

“What did you say?”

“I said,” pulling far enough away from him to look up into his face “that you’re beautiful.”

“Isn’t that supposed to be my line?”

“Shut up, I’m being serious, Jughead. Over this summer I’ve seen you change—before it’s like you were trapped, but now you’ve been able to heal all those wounds that you’d been carrying around with you, and I think that that is beautiful. Truly.”

“It wouldn’t have been possible without you.”

“Yes it would have—just would’ve taken a bit longer, that’s all.”

“Mmm.” Jughead hums out, leaning down to kiss her, noticing how tightly she holds onto him as he does so.

Her nose presses cold against his face, and he can feel her hands shaking inside his, so pulls away, ready to suggest that they hurry inside, when the sight of her face arrests him.

Veronica had gone completely pale, with two red splotches marking her cheeks, and her eyes…Her eyes shine brightly out at him—fractured by heavy tears and overly dilated pupils.

“Veronica…Veronica, what’s wrong? You’re crying."

“Nothing’s wrong. I’m not crying.” pulling him down to her, kissing him again, desperately.

“Princess—“

“Jughead, will you please just…stop. We have tonight, and it’s the only one left, so let’s just let this be, just for one night.”

She watches him as he considers it, biting her lips and squeezing the blood from his fingers.

“If you’re sure that you’re okay. You know that you can talk to me about anything right?”

“Oh, would you just shut up and kiss me?”

So he does. He kisses her, and through his kiss he tries to tell her, ‘I’m here for you.”

* * *

It’s dark out when they finally reach Riverdale the next night. Veronica’s on driving duty, and Jughead’s sitting in the passenger seat, feeling his consciousness slowly fade away.

She has the radio on—loud and thumping—and the closer they’ve gotten the faster her fingers have been tapping against the steering wheel. He wants to ask what the matter is; if he’s done something wrong or if she’s had some bad news, but every time he tries to Veronica fills up the air with frantic jokes and exclamations.

Suddenly the car halts, and through the sluggish air and all-over blackness, Jughead can hear Veronica exiting the car, leaving the radio blaring behind her. Blinking himself awake, Jughead follows her and see’s that they’ve stopped a few feet away from the town’s welcome sign.

“Veronica, what’s going on? Did something happen with the car?”

Veronica, who’s back is to him, shakes her head, then turns around in a series of short jerks, holding out the car keys to him.

“Take the keys, Jughead.”

“What; don’t you want to be at the wheel when we make our triumphant return?” he jokes, stepping closer to her.

“Jughead, just take them, alright?”

“Okay…”

He extends his hand slowly and Veronica drops them into his open palm—lips twitching and blinking rapidly.

“There’s a bank account with fifteen thousand dollars in it and—and the car is in your name and my dad says that you can stay with him for as long as you need to—you know, until you get on your feet, so—yeah.”

Her words come out in a steady rush that takes Jughead a few moments to untangle and understand, but once he does all he can do is blink at he; completely confused.

“Princess, what are you talking about? You’re not making any sense.”

“It’s for you, for you to go back to New York.”

“Yeah, I sorta grasped that. But I don’t understand why—I thought that we were planning on sticking around here for a little while—deciding where we wanted to go next—“

“I’m not just coming back to Riverdale for a ‘little while,’ Jughead!” she blurts out, wrapping her arms around her torso “I’m staying. For good, maybe. My mom got me a job at the mayor’s office and Pop said that I could pick up some shifts at the diner if I wanted to and—I’m staying…”

“But…why?” he hears himself ask through the confusion.

“Because—because I’m not the girl from New York anymore. The person who I was then—I don’t want to be her again. I can’t be her. I like the Riverdale version of me, and I know that I could build a life here—“

“That’s not what I meant; I meant, why didn’t you tell me this before? Why did you lie to me!?”

Color rises in Veronica’s face at his voice and she juts her chin out at him defiantly while she answers.

“I didn’t lead you on, okay? And I’m not asking you to stay, I’m not asking you to do anything but get in the car and drive back to New York and live a wonderful life.”

“Veronica, New York won’t be New York without you being there!”

Jughead’s full on shouting now, he can feel it in the burning of his disused vocal cords, but Veronica’s shouting too, and if he wasn’t so angry he’d seriously be considering pulling her across the few feet of pavement that separates them and kissing her senseless.

“Well it’s going to have to be, because I can’t do this anymore! I can’t—I’m not strong enough to!”

“Strong enough? Strong enough for what, Veronica?”

“I’m not strong enough to keep being with you like this and—I’m not strong enough to hide the fact that I’m falling in love with you! Because I am, but I refuse to let myself be in another relationship with a man who is still in love with Betty Cooper.”

She pauses for breath, but before Jughead can speak she’s talking again.

“I was in love with Archie, and when he broke up with me for her I felt like I was going to die! But I love you ten, twenty times more then him and I can’t risk you breaking my heart—because if you do I know that I will never be able to feel happy again!”

She frantic now, with tears streaming down her cheeks and her arms flung outwards; shaking. Jughead steps closer, grasping her hands in his then says,

“Veronica, I’m not in love with—“

“Yes, you are!”

“No, I’m not. Now get back in the car.”

“Yes, Jughead, you are—and I’m not getting back in the car!”

“Veronica, get in the car!”

“No!”

“Veronica, I’m not in love with Betty, okay? Do you really think that I would have gone to New York with you if I wasn’t in love with you? I’m in love with _you_! You, Veronica Lodge, no-one else—not now, not ever. I’m in love with you and if that means staying in Riverdale to be with you, I’m doing it, no questions asked!”

“You—you love me?”

“Yes, I am. I, Jughead Jones, love you, Veronica Lodge; you silly, silly woman.”

And with those words flouting out in the open, and Veronica looking up at him with a slow smile growing on her face, Jughead pulls her over to him and kisses her—and the kiss tastes like infinity.


End file.
